


Just a trim

by sufferingundergrad



Series: Fem Lance and the Paladudes [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Coran is a mustache diva, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Established Relationship, F/M, Fem!Lance, Lance really likes her long hair, Mentions of Coran - Freeform, Not Beta Read, Pidge will electrocute your ass, Sadly that hair needs a cut, first fic, mentions of Allura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12309708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sufferingundergrad/pseuds/sufferingundergrad
Summary: Lance loves her hair. It's shiny and falls to her waist and looks great up, down or anywhere in-between. She's spent her whole life growing it, not to mention about $200 a year maintaining it. Unfortunately, her hair has become a liability on missions. (Galra can't keep their hands to themselves.) Now she's decided it needs a cut, but it's hard to say goodbye.





	Just a trim

**Author's Note:**

> I love fem!Lance because I think she'd be the most extra girl ever when it came to her self care routines. Plus me and my sisters all have long hair and it is a bitch to take care of, so this is a partial vent.  
> This is my first fic and I'm really just hoping to use these for writing exercises since I'm working on my novel thesis.  
> Please let me know what you guys think, I'd love feedback.  
> Hope this turns out ok. 
> 
> I used google translate so I'm really sorry if the words are a little off.

Lance dropped the scissors onto the counter as a sob caught in her throat. She couldn't do this. She'd given up a lot, coming to space and joining Voltron, but she didn't want to give up her hair too. She ignored the voices telling her that she shouldn't be selfish and that it was just hair and slid down the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her paladin pajamas weren't bringing her the comfort she was used to feeling and not even the yellow sparkle from the eyes of her super-comfy lion slippers helped stem the flow of tears as they made their way down her cheeks.

"I'm being so stupid," she moaned at the tiny lions. "It's just hair, right? It'll grow back..."

She leaned forward letting the long strands of the aforementioned hair wrap around her shoulders and cover her legs. If you asked her, Lance would say that her hair was her best feature. Though she took excellent care of her face and skin, her hair had always been a point of pride for her. She would willingly admit that the decision to grow it out had come about largely because of watching 'The Little Mermaid' over a million times as a kid.

Growing up so close to Varadero Beach it was a given that she'd fall in love with the movie. Every movie night she'd build a blanket fort with her siblings and go about convincing them to watch it with her. Her sisters were easily swayed. Ami and Maria wouldn't admit it at the time, but her older sisters definitely had the biggest crushes on Prince Eric. Her brothers, on the other hand, hated subtitles and musicals. Unfortunately, Lance was the baby of the family and usually knew how to get what she wanted. Her big blue eyes and pout had won her more arguments than was probably fair, but she didn't mind so long as she got to watch the best movie ever made. Eventually, Miguel, her oldest brother, would sigh and put the movie on, letting her snuggle up next to his side with a blanket wrapped around both of their shoulders.

"Tengo lástima del muchacho que enrolla alrededor de tu dedo, pequeña hermana."  _I pity the boy that winds up wrapped around your finger, little sister._

Lance giggled. At the time, boys had seemed like gross aliens that didn't make sense and smelled funny. Except for her brothers of course. They were the only exceptions. 

Her obsession with 'The Little Mermaid' led to her first dream of becoming one when she grew up. In Lance's mind, at least, that meant having long hair. So, from the ages of ten to seventeen, she'd taken exceptionally good care of her light-brown hair. Spending hours in the hair care aisles at the store debating one shampoo over the other, reviewing conditioners, and browsing through various smoothing serums and styling products. Even at the Garrison, she'd taken forever in the shower making sure she went through every step of the extensive routine, even though she'd been told to keep it braided according to military standards. 

Her hard work  _showed_ too. Though various hair brushes and ties had been sacrificed in the process, her hair had grown in thick and full, falling to her waist with the slightest hint of a wave. The serums that she used helped keep the frizz down and left her hair shiny and soft looking. Add in the fact that she took excellent care of her face and body, and Lance knew she looked good, damn good. Even if she was forced to wear the unattractive garrison uniform and braid. 

Then the lions had happened and suddenly she was in space, accomplishing her second lifelong dream,along with fighting a war she'd barely even understood in semi-sentient lions that were incredibly badass but also mildly terrifying. 

The first month had been rough and she'd clung to her beauty routine in an effort to establish some bit of normality now that they were in another freaking Galaxy. Allura had been helpful in finding things like toner and make-up, apparently Alteans had similar skin needs to humans, and Hunk, the big, beautiful, yellow teddy bear of the team had used one of his stress cooking sessions to help Lance whip up multiple face masks and scrubs to use in the evenings.  

That only left hair products. With as much as she babied her hair, Lance knew that the harsh shampoo the Alteans seemed to use would leave it completely dry and lifeless and that was a definite no-no. It was a wonder Allura's hair was still soft and full looking if she used that crap everyday.

Lance knew better than to ask Pidge about hair care. It was easy enough to see that the pint-sized green paladin barely took care of her own hair. Lance knew that Hunk did the bare minimum when it came to hair and skin and would have no problem using the shampoo they'd been given. Shiro... Shiro was still a bit intimidating to be around, despite being Lance's personal hero. Sure he was definitely eye-candy, but the dude had been abducted by aliens and held for a year. It seemed rude to ask him about hair stuff.

That string of thought left her at the bedroom door of one mullet-headed, angsty, red paladin.

Swallowing her pride hadn't been easy for Lance. She'd had issues with Keith before they'd been launched into space in a blue cat. They'd been pretty evenly matched back the Galaxy Garrison, and Lance had thought that they could be friends, maybe even more because, hey, the guy was a serious treat to look at. Said treat's crappy attitude when she'd tried to talk to him and stupid mullet and biker gloves had killed that notion pretty quickly though.

After that she'd poured every bit of her energy into beating Keith. She'd focused more in class and in the work outs they'd been given. She'd convince Hunk to practice with her after self defense class. If she didn't understand something she'd flirt with some smart guy or girl until they agreed to tutor her, mumbling and blushing the whole time they helped her with homework or exam prep. When charm failed, her own hard work had pulled her through. Her grades had risen, much to her parent's delight, and she'd risen through the ranks of her classmates within the year.

Somehow, though, stupid mullet-head Keith had been one step ahead of her. The worst part was that he didn't even acknowledge how far she'd come, even though she was his biggest competition for first in class and had marginally better scores than him in tactical simulators. It infuriated her to no end. 

When Keith had been kicked out for assaulting Iverson after the Kerberos Mission crash, all her motivation went with him. Without Keith to compete with, the A's she'd been steadily getting dropped down to B's and C plusses. Prompting a very long call from Cuba with her parents wanting to know what the hell happened. Esperanza Sanchez-Mcclain had been thrilled with her daughter's progress, she wanted her baby girl to have the dream she'd been chasing since she was twelve, and the sudden drop in grades had worried her. She'd gone so far as too ask if Lance was having another bout of depression, the way she had after her abuelita's death a few years ago. Lance had hurriedly assured her that she was fine and didn't need to see a councilor or have her parents visit her. Though she'd love to see them, she knew they couldn't afford to waste money on the airfare. She'd pulled her grades up to solid B plusses and A minuses and her parents had been content to leave her alone, but without her rival there, the victories felt hollow. 

Keith hadn't looked kindly on her quest for half-decent shampoo. It was a 'waste of time' and 'not helpful to their mission' and 'why couldn't she make do with what they got?' To which Lance had kindly replied; "Fuck you, you seventies reject!" and stormed off. They hadn't spoken for three days after that until a squabble in the training room resulted in her nearly shooting Keith in his annoyingly cute ass. She refused to apologize for that.

Amazingly, Coran was the one that had supplied her with the stuff she'd needed. Granted they were meant for mustaches but they did the trick. Apparently, Coran was as avid in caring for his mustache as Lance was toward her hair. God bless that man. 

Over time, the team had gotten used to Lance's almost obsessive self care routines, learning that it was a comfort for her. Even Keith had scoffed less and less when he saw her toting the bulging bag of hair and skin products to the communal bathroom each night (until they'd figured out that there were hidden personal bathrooms in their bedrooms. Thanks, Coran), even on days when they'd had the missions from hell. He'd had to admire her dedication if nothing else. He'd stopped scoffing completely after they'd gotten together and he'd discovered that running his hands through her hair while they cuddled was one of the best feelings in the universe, besides flying Red. 

Their relationship had been slow to take off, but soon enough Lance and Keith were almost always together. She'd even gotten Keith hooked on cuddling, despite his initial almost-fear of it. Lance loved when Keith played with her hair during their cuddle sessions, it reminded her of home and her siblings. She'd even told him about why she'd grown it long in the first place. He'd teased her for a week and she'd been forced to avoid the reconfigured pool since he'd joke about needing a mermaid to rescue him. (Yes, her boyfriend was the biggest dork in the universe.)

The point was, Keith knew how much Lance loved her hair. How much it grounded her to home and her family. He knew how she loved taking care of it, how she loved the way he played with it and undid all of her carefully arranged pins after they finished diplomatic meetings. She especially loved the way he'd bury his hands in it or wrap the long tail of hair around his hand when they made out in her room. 

After the last mission when she told him she was cutting her hair, he'd looked shell-shocked. What had followed was an hour long screaming match with Keith trying to convince her that what had happened wasn't her fault and Lance screaming back that it didn't matter she couldn't put the team in danger because she wanted to look pretty. 

The mission itself had happened two quintants ago. The Marmorites had informed them that there was a prison ship in a quadrant near them and Allura had taken it upon herself to declare that Voltron would be apprehending it. 

Rescuing the prisoners had gone well enough, it was what happened after that had screwed everything up. Right after the last prisoner had been loaded into an escape pod headed towards the Castle, the hanger they were in exploded with Galran soldiers. Somehow the team had managed to hold them back and hack their way through most of the droids. Lance had tossed her helmet so she'd have a better field of vision, and was covering everyone from the back with her rifle, picking off the droids with expert shots that opened up room for her team to maneuver. From her spot in front of the lions it seemed like she'd be safe. 

Lance had been so focused on her teammates that she hadn't noticed the Galra approaching from the back. The commander of the Galran ship had been more interested in the sharpshooter than the lions, and only a warning shout from Keith kept Lance from getting stabbed from behind. 

Lance had jerked forward, trying to put enough distance between her and the commander to get off a good shot but the Galra had other plans. Without warning Lance was jerked back to the ground by her hair, the tips of the long strands grasped in the commanders fist as he straddled her body and kept a foot on the hand holding her bayard. 

Lance had stared at the sword raised over her heart, terrified and certain she was going to die. 

"Lance!" She heard Keith scream her name and turned to him, whimpering. Keith slashed through the droid he'd been fighting and ran towards her, leaving his back completely open. A droid took aim and fired a quick blast at the red paladin. Lance screamed when she saw him fall to the ground. Luckily, the blast glanced off of his armor, not hurting him, just forcefully knocking him over and leaving him stunned. 

The Galra holding her hair had laughed when she tried to struggle away and run towards her boyfriend. 

"Goodbye, Little Blue," he said, smiling sickeningly while he raised the sword over her chest once again. Lance had writhed and shrieked for Keith to stand up, to move at all, while simultaneously emptying her entire vocabulary of curse words on the Galran General, both Spanish and English. Hell, Lance even tossed in the little bit of Samoan she'd picked up from Hunk and the four Italian swear words Pidge had taught her. That didn't stop him from laughing as he plunged the sword towards the chest plate of her armor. Lance had squeezed her eyes closed, knowing she was dead, but the sound of electricity made her open them again. 

"Pidge!" She yelled, overjoyed to see the younger girl standing over the body of the general she'd just fried, her face red with anger and her mouth pressed into a thin line. 

Pidge helped her up while Shiro ran by them, carrying Keith over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 

"Hunk set a bomb, we gotta go. C'mon!" Pidge and Lance followed after him without questioning, Hunk not far behind them. Lance kept her eyes on Keith's face as they loaded into their lions. Blue carting Red back to the castle just before the bomb went off and the castle made the leap into a wormhole.

* * *

 

Lance sighed as she picked up the scissors again. It had been two days since that mission, Keith hadn't needed a pod, thank goodness, but Shiro now had a purple bruise on his chin from where Keith's head had banged into it when he'd come to the next morning, screaming Lance's name and jerking up into a sitting position. After a good bit of reassuring whispers Keith had released Lance from the bone crushing hug he'd wrapped her in and she'd told him about the decision to cut her hair. 

Granted, Keith was just trying to be a good boyfriend, but she refused to listen when he said she should keep the long hair. She couldn't bring herself to tell him how guilty she felt. Because Lance's hair, of all things, had been grabbed and used against her, the best boyfriend she could ever ask for had nearly died. Lance couldn't let that happen again. 

Usually after stressful missions Keith would stay with her. They'd sneak into Lance's room and cuddle, falling asleep to the reassurance that the other was there and safe. That night, though, Lance's bed had felt very big and very empty. Yesterday hadn't been any better, Lance had spent most of it hiding in Blue, letting her lion's comforting purr wash over her. The only time she'd seen Keith was when he'd run past the hanger after Coran asking if the older Altean could help him with something. 

Last night Lance had locked herself in her bathroom with the pair of scissors the mice had unearthed for her and tried to convince herself to make the first cut. It hadn't worked, she was still sitting there with long hair now that the castles morning cycle had started. 

Lance's tears started falling faster as she stared at the cold metal instrument in her hand. 

Damn it. Why couldn't she do this? It was so easy for everyone else. It was just hair, for God's sake! Memories flashed through Lance's mind as she sat against the wall. Her niece braiding flowers into Lance's hair, Lance's nephew on standby with two handfuls of pretty blue flowers for his sister to use. Her mother brushing out Lance's hair before her Quinceanera ** _._** Lance's junior prom when she'd felt like a damn fairy princess in her floaty white dress with blue sequins and her hair loosely curled and floating around her body, her mom's jeweled butterfly clip keeping the strands off her face. Lance showing Keith how to properly braid hair, letting him practice on her while she finished the hat she was knitting him after he mentioned missing his beanie. 

Lance was so busy trying to hold back any more tears that she barely heard the knock on her door. 

"Lance," she heard Keith's voice filter thought the bathroom door. "Babe, can I come in?" Lance didn't have the energy to tell him to leave, especially since he'd called her 'babe'. In their relationship, Lance was the one more inclined to use pet names, while Keith rarely called her anything other than her own name. Preferring it to any of the endearments she'd told him he could use on her. 

"Come in," Lance groused from her spot on the floor, not looking up when the door slid open and he walked in. 

"So you haven't done it yet," was all Keith said, kneeling down in front of her even though she still didn't look at him. 

"No." Lance sniffled. 

"I told you, you don't have to do this." He tilted her chin up, making her look at him despite the protesting noise that she made. "It's your choice though, and if this is what you want to do, then I'll help you through it." Lance looked at him then, though 'looked' might be a bit of a stretch. Her eyes were so blurry with tears, she could barely make out his outline. 

"I couldn't do it," she mumbled. "I tried, but I couldn't."

"Are you going to leave it alone then?" Keith rubbed small circles into her cheek with his thumb, Lance leaned into the touch gratefully. 

"No, I can't risk you getting hurt again cause I got pinned down." She felt Keith stiffen before he forced himself to relax. 

"Do you want to find someone else to do it," he asked. "Allura, Coran, maybe Hunk?" Lance shook her head.

"Can you do it?" She asked hesitantly. 

"If you want me to," he said after a moment. "I'm not the best barber though." 

"Just don't give me your mullet," Lance said, letting out a watery chuckle. 

"You keep that up, I just might." Keith muttered, pulling Lance into his chest and cradling her there. Lance wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled into his chest for a moment before seeking out his lips. Keith indulged her with a soft brush of lips before brushing the seam of her mouth with his tongue in an effort to deepen the kiss. Lance opened up immediately, tilting her head to give him better access. 

They stayed that way for a while, wrapped in each other, scissors forgotten on the floor. Lance sighed and slid her hands up Kieth's back, fully intending to wrap the soft strands of black hair around her fingers. It took an embarrassingly long time for her to realize that what she was seeking wasn't there. 

"What the hell happened to your mullet, Mullet!" Lance shrieked, jerking away from him and ending the kiss, her boyfriend finally coming into focus. 

"I wanted to show you that I'd be with you through this." Keith rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, looking incredibly pissed that their make out session had come to an abrupt end. 

Lance just gaped at him. A blush worked its way up Keith's neck and tinged the tops of his ears as she stared at him disbelievingly.

"Does it look that bad?" He asked, face falling and a kicked puppy look taking over.

"N-no! It looks great! I-It's amazing! just- wow." Lance leaned forward and ran her fingertips over the exposed back of Keith's neck, enjoying the small shiver she pulled out of him. In a way she kind of missed the (not really)annoying hairstyle her boyfriend had previously sported. However, seeing so much of the neck she loved to nibble on exposed sent a lot of non-PG thoughts running through her brain. Lance barely stopped herself from grinning wolfishly at him. Then another though popped up. 

"We won't be able to hide the hickey's now," she pouted. 

Keith sputtered. "That's the first thing you say?!" 

"Yeah," she said giving him a wide-eyed look.

"You can't just- We shouldn't- How 'bout you just stop sucking hickeys onto my neck? What about that?" he finally shouted, face completely red.

"Nooooo," Lance whined. "You're mine and I mark what's mine," she said, jokingly.

"Right, I'm yours," he snorted. "Do you want me to do your hair now?"

Lance's face fell, but she nodded her head. "I trust you," she whispered.

 

It didn't turn out as bad as she thought it would. Keith carefully cut her hair just below her shoulders and even layered the front so that it would frame her face and not just lie there. Lance wasn't exactly pleased with the new look but she figured at this point if she tried hard enough she could rock this just as much as she'd rocked her last style. She was already thoughtfully staring at the jar of Altean mustache styling gel Coran had given her, ideas popping into her brain. 

"So, you're good at this too." Lance muttered as Keith carefully trimmed any errant hairs he'd missed. 

"Hmm... Not really. I asked Coran to give me a few tips when he cut my hair. It looked fun."

"Stop being more talented than me!" Lance pouted. 

"When you stop being the most amazing girl I could ever want." That shut Lance up for a moment.

"Well that's not gonna happen," she muttered. 

"Then shut up." He set the scissors aside and brushed through her hair one more time before declaring her done. 

"Does it look ok?" Lance fingered a strand that curled under her chin and looked at Keith nervously. After which Keith promptly lifted her up onto the bathroom counter and proceeded to kiss her senseless, running his hands through her newly short hair and mumbling against her lips exactly how beautiful he thought she was. 

Lance was grinning by the time they left the bathroom to go show the others. Keith hadn't noticed, and probably wouldn't for a while, but Lance had taken advantage of the newly exposed area of neck and had left a dark hickey just beneath his hair line. As a 'thank you' for the haircut, of course.

He made sure to get her back that night when they were curled up together in bed.

 

 

 


End file.
